


Letting Go

by GuardianAngelOfTheUnderworld



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26055793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianAngelOfTheUnderworld/pseuds/GuardianAngelOfTheUnderworld
Summary: Bianca di Angelo remembered the moment she died. She remembered how time seemed to stop, and how the breath seemed to be sucked straight from her lungs.Bianca struggles with memories of her past, and a crush on a girl she knows she can never have. Nico mourns, believing she is dead.
Kudos: 9





	Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so sorry that it's not great. It was an idea I had earlier today so I thought I'd stay up writing it:)
> 
> Content warning: minor internalised homophobia

Bianca di Angelo remembered the moment she died. She remembered how time seemed to stop, and the breath seemed to be sucked straight from her lungs. She remembered a shrill voice from somewhere behind her as she ran to her own death;  
"Bianca, wait!". 

However, in that very moment, she found herself caught up in trying to do the right thing that the second of those two words never clicked in her mind. And, so it was that she found herself sprinting towards her own death, her last word mumbled under her breath:  
"Percy, keep Nico safe.". She had failed to do so the moment she had joined Artemis.

The Hades figurine was still sketched in the back of her mind as she felt her body crush under the weight of metal, her bones snapping one by one. She screamed, and waited. She waited for heartbeats that she didn't have, oxygen-deprived blood flowing through her veins for what felt like centuries. 

The moment never came. Instead, Bianca was overcome with complete stillness, a vacuum where her own death should have been. She tried to move, forgetting every bone in her body. She couldn't. The daughter of Hades would've sighed if she could have. Outside, she could hear a whipping wind, and beyond that, almost pure silence. A footstep. Nothing more.

Salt began trickling down Bianca's cheek, mixing with the grime of the scrap yard all around her. No, this couldn't be the end. What was happening? 

She thought of Nico; the look on his face when he found out, what might happen. Even now, after she had abandoned him, every waking moment was filled with worries for him, terrified if anything happened to him.

But, also, she thought of Percy. Bianca had seen the way Nico had looked at him, with a distant longing, the same way she had looked at Zöe. Nico, who still called out into the silent night, calling for their mother, who shuffled his mythomagic cards whenever he was nervous, and still kept his crayon drawings of pirates inside his aviator jacket, would be the biggest threat to both himself and Percy the moment he heard the news. She had known him long enough to know he would blame Percy. 

Bianca, on the other hand did not blame Percy in the slightest. After all, he was the one who had called put to Bianca, to try and stop and make her think. She did not regret her actions, but a burning guilt built up inside her, for how her actions might effect others. Especially Nico.

In the darkness, she could've sworn she heard her own breathing, rattling against the metal of her prison.   
"Bianca, not all is lost." She tried to call out, forgetting that there was nothing. She was not exactly dead, but not a muscle in her body moved, and her heart had stopped beating. Time itself had stopped, almost as though she had made it. 

"Who are you?" She thought, asking the darkness. This time, when the voice replied, she caught herself. It was not one voice, but many, whispered with dying breaths, in harmony but despair.   
"We are all that once were, but not anymore." Ghosts, right. Why the fuck would they have been anything even vaguely sensible? 

As soon as she thought that, she realised it did kind of make sense. Although Nico didn't remember, Bianca remembered Hades. She reminded herself that she was, after all, a daughter of Hades. She supposed it made sense that she could see ghosts.

"Am I dead?" She thought, asking the ghosts.  
"Where is Charon?" A dark skinned girl with frizzy black hair striped towards her through the darkness. She wore garb of the 30s, as though a tease of her past life.   
"No you are not dead." Only the girl's mouth moved, but many voices still followed, as they had before.  
"You are merely motionless."

"Bianca." Nico's voice rippled through the darkness, and she was thrust from it, revealing a dimly light graveyard underneath the night sky.  
"Nico?! What-" She was stunned to find she had a voice again.  
"Bianca! Oh, gods, it actually worked!"

Nico suddenly leaped forwards to hug her. He stopped, confused, as his hand slid right through her body.  
"Oh, right. Ghost."  
"Nico, I'm not dea-". Bianca broke down in tears. She sat on the grass with her knees propped up against her chest, head buried in her legs. She heard the grass crunch as Nico sat down next to her in silence.

They sat like that for a while, until Bianca brushed away the last of her tears with her hand. Nico sat picking nervously at the rips in his jeans.   
"Nico, what did you do?" Bianca's voice quavered a little as she noticed the burnt ashes of mythomagic cards in a small pit a few metres away.   
"I grew up." Nico replied bluntly.

Bianca hadn't seen Nico cry since the day Mama died, but she caught the tears trickling down his cheeks at this point.   
"Nico, not like this." This was all her fault. All these years ahead had been telling her brother to grow up, as though it was his fault that their lives had been turned upside down, and they had ended up in the wrong century. It was also her who hadn't thought before running to her own death, not stopping to even say goodbye properly to those around her, not even Zöe.

Oh, Gods, Zöe. How could Bianca be so thoughtless?! She had left Zöe with Percy and Grover, whom she didn't feel comfortable even talking with, and Thalia, whom she despised. Bianca seemed to phase out completely for a second at the smell of her hair; pine, crisp with snow. 

Shit. What was she thinking?! Zöe was a girl. Bianca grimaced slightly, and Nico must've noticed, because he brought her back to reality.  
"You alright?" Nico didn't need anymore emotional baggage than he already had, and, besides, he was too young, so she lied.  
"Yeah, everything's fine." He didn't look convinced.

Bianca flinched as she heard footsteps nearby. Nico's hand went straight to his sheath.  
"Sorry, you've got to go." He got to his feet.  
"Nico, wa-" She was once again thrust into darkness and her voice was snatched away from her. 

Nico trusted himself more than others, and more than was natural. Throught his childhood, he had been laughed at and teased for not exactly being normal. In their first six months or so of being in the 21st century, Nico had been diagnosed with autism. After some explaining, it seemed to fall into place like a puzzle piece: his fanatic obsessions, his small tics, his difficulty in talking to others, everything. He had a natural sense of secrecy, even towards his sister, whom he had just thrown back into the darkness.

Hours ticked by with nothing. Bianca thought of her life before America, and how different the views had been. It had been relatively late at night, and the three of them were sat on the edge of one of the canals in Venice. Bianca remembered the dat very clearly in her mind, for it had been the day before they had moved to Washington. November 19th, 1942. 

On the way down, they had ridden on the back of Mama's red bicycle, like they had every Saturday before. Nico had brought his wooden toy ship down with him, and he was pushing it through the mucky waters. Bianca remembered trying to stop him; the river had been polluted for centuries, but she was more worried about the bomb shrapnel than anything else.

Mama's wide rimmed hat sat low on her forehead as she sat knitting a scar for Nico for the winter to come. The river was already beginning to freeze over in places, but Bianca still skimmed stones across the grimy water. 

She would never forget the shrill sound of the sirens. Even in a world where she knew the Greek gods were real, nothing would quite compare. Nico dropped the boat and it sank in the canal. The drill had happened so many times before it had become routine, although it was impossible to place when the air raids would come. Maria di Angelo briskly stood up from her knitting, grabbed Nico by the hand, and beckoned Bianca to follow.

They were several blocks away from their house, so they found their way to a public shelter instead. It was already packed, and they were the last inside. Bianca hated these hours, more than anything else in the world. Nico always covered his ears and screwed up his eyes, waiting for the bombs to come. Bianca wasn't particularly scared of the bombs, however, but instead the enclosed space she found herself in, built from corrugated iron, which felt less like it was keeping the bombs out, and more like it was keeping her in.

Bianca curled up in a ball on the bench and waited for the hours to pass. She felt sweat building up on skin, hot and sticky with panic, the throng of people in an enclosed space making it ten times worse. She listened to the ticking of a watch from an old man sat nearby. She heard Nico scream as a bomb landed particularly close to the shelter. He wasn't the only one. There was a tremor in the Earth, but not from the bomb, but from inside the shelter itself. Finally, after what seemed like years, the bombing stopped and the call was made that it was safe enough for them to go back outside. The British planes were long gone.

The whispering began again. The girl from before paced, as though waiting for someone, distressed from a previous life. Bianca wondered what had disturbed her so much, and why she had died at such a young age. She wondered if maybe she had misjudged the clothes, the girl was probably American, after all, and she had died in the war, and not in the thirties, as Bianca had thought.   
"Bianca, let go." She didn't know what the ghosts meant, or how to let go.

She thought again of Zöe, who had lived for two millennia, ready to fight until she died in battle. Just then, it clicked in her mind as to what the ghosts meant. Zöe hadn't let go yet, because she wasn't ready to. Bianca was. She paused for enough time that would've been a deep breath, then let go.


End file.
